At a consumer products company we’re familiar with, no one on the senior team would ever refer to the company’s products as “commodities.” Managers there know what the competition has to offer, and they know their goods are different. They can name the distinctive features and explain their value—and they can tell you how much they’ve spent on innovation to keep that edge.

On a recent business trip to London, I surprised the conference organizers by turning down the opportunity to stay at the posh hotel hosting the conference in favor of a rather modest Airbnb flat. The hotel was clearly much more luxurious. The flat would require me to take the tube or an Uber to the event. Who in their right mind would make such a choice?

It was reported yesterday that Westfield Corporation, which operates 32 large U.S. malls is looking to startups to spur innovation. They are concerned with the perception that online retailers are capturing the eyes (and pocketbooks) of consumers, thereby eroding their market dominance and ultimately profits.

According to a recent WSJ article, Twitter has 313 million monthly active users, but its “total addressable audience” is 800 million (and possible much larger if you include who see tweets outside Twitter’s website or apps, or even every news source that simply cites and/or quotes a tweet.)

Dollar Shave Club introduced a subscription model for selling razors using slapstick humor on YouTube. Now, Dollar Shave Club is being bought by Unilever PLC for $1 billion cash. Among the lessons learned and traditional industry norms broken are:

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